‘It’s not good for Laois hurling to be down at that level next year’

Laois manager Tommy Fitzgerald’s initial reaction to Saturday’s loss against Carlow is that he’s ‘obviously very disappointed’.

Fitzgerald saw his side rack up 29 points but still fall short against a quality Carlow outfit, and the loss means that Laois will be facing into Division 2 of the NHL in 2026.

“We worked hard at today’s game and we were in the position to win it, and we put ourselves in that position but coming down the stretch they finished stronger and they made better decisions than us, and that was probably the difference,” he said after the loss.

“In terms of performance it was certainly better than last week, at time we looked decent out there and put some nice passages of play together.

“It was probably our own mistakes that hurt us, unforced errors and just way too many at this level and you’re going to get punished.” Injuries were rife in the squad coming into Saturday’s game having lost Paddy Purcell, Eanna Lyons and Cha Dwyer against Antrim, compounded with the late omission of Jer Quinlan but Fitzgerald praised the players that stepped in.

The Laois boss said, “We were down a lot of bodies, there were five players that played last week were named to play then we lost Podge (Delaney) early today.

“We’re always talking about the strength of our panel and we do have a competitive panel and lads got opportunities today, I thought they did okay in fairness.

“Some lads came in and did really well and that’ll stand to them, it gives us more options and headaches when we sit down to pick a team for Westmeath in five weeks’ time.” Mistakes led to some key scores for Carlow in the game and that’s something Fitzgerald claimed his side needs to work on going forward.

“It wasn’t a case of them opening us up, the two goals came from our errors and again that’s disappointing. I thought the effort and honesty from the players was good, I don’t think anyone could question that,” he added.

“When you go out you can’t legislate for unforced errors and the lads who made the mistakes know themselves and it’s not easy for them but the same fellas were very good today and got us out of trouble on different occasions.

“Hurling is chaotic and there will be errors, but we have to cut down on the amount we’re making.” Now that relegation is confirmed all roads lead to the Joe McDonagh Cup which gets underway with a contest against Westmeath in mid-April and Fitzgerald has confidence in his side to bounce back.

“We always knew we’d be in a better place come championship, it’s a tough league but at the same time we’re bitterly disappointed and that’s us down now.

“It’s not good for Laois hurling to be down at that level next year, but I said to the lads that horrible phrase ‘it is what it is’ and we have five weeks to get ready for the Joe Mc and we’ll be very confident we’ll be very competitive in that and we won’t be too far away.”